About

ESG Legal Solutions, LLC is a majority woman owned legal consulting firm owned and operated by attorneys who provide experienced professional advice, law and non-law, driven by strategic thinking coupled with a practical approach to a broad breadth of sustainability matters for organizations including the emergent space of Environmental Social Governance (ESG).

Today, businesses are being pulled into or in some instances are diving headfirst into the risks and opportunities that are ESG. Many companies are under pressure to articulate environmental social governance policies and practices (for example, making a pledge to be Net Zero by 2040, or the like), sometimes on what are controversial matters, while c-suites and boards of directors are struggling to navigate in this new largely uncharted territory.

We strive not only to mitigate legal and reputational ESG risks but work with businesses to maximize ESG opportunities.

We are not partisans in the culture wars over ESG, but rather we work with businesses in dealing effectively with today’s realities. Our work can include developing crisis plans in case things go wrong.

Today, reputational risk is real in the realm of sustainability, but so is the opportunity for a company to stay relevant incorporating ESG into management and governance practices. If an organization wants the very best employees (.. think human capital), to keep its very best customers and attract new customers (.. consider revenue), in most business sectors, today, being able to articulate ESG matters is of import. There are some existing federal and state laws, but preparing for new statutes, proposed regulations and draft guidance is just that, new, and something most companies and their existing legal team have little experience with. We excel by bridging the gap between legal and business where much of our work is preparing clients to thrive in a fast approaching, prescriptive ESG regulatory framework.

When engaging ESG Legal Solutions, organizations from public corporations to mom and pop businesses and the not for profit sector, all have access to deeper and broader levels of knowledge and more experience than are available from a traditional law firm or consultant alone; we can literally supercharge functions. We offer unbundled professional services from educating boards of directors and c-suites about the ABCs of ESG, enhancing leadership diversity, increasing organization wide expertise, and inspiring management success; to undertaking regulatory required factual investigation and drafting language for SEC filings and building energy performance standards reporting; to evaluating opportunities for market differentiation from competitors remaining in compliance with materiality rules while prepositioning work product to comply with the rules that are only now coming, with the FTC Green Guides and with other current and emerging legal requirements; offering the full range of turn key sustainability associated services.

For example, we have focused experience with greenhouse gas emission (including Scope 1, 2, and 3) calculations, disclosures and reductions across a broad breadth of industries, including crafting strategies for government required GHG filings and mandatory reductions for clients.

In another example, we have worked across diverse industries assisting clients is assessing and managing the risks of modern slavery in their business supply chain. And the posts to this blog further highlight the wide scope our subject matter experience on behalf of clients.

Many businesses work with attorneys on these matters so that all of the ESG efforts are confidential and subject to attorney client privilege maximizing green hushing and only making public information when desirable (..yes, the strategy of green hushing has expanded to ESG). We work with businesses that have stopped using the three letters but have not taken their foot off the gas of decarbonizing and addressing social issues.

We know that no two businesses will respond to ESG in an identical manner. We also recognize that the capabilities of businesses vary widely. There are no simple cookie cutter solutions. ESG Legal Solutions can provide your business with well researched data and dialogue on these issues as the business builds scalable, frictionless environmnetal social governance functions into existing functions.

To be clear we are not ESG hypochondriacs. We work to accelerate action by businesses, to mitigate risk and maximize opportunity through environmental social governance. We can support an organization’s existing project, whatever its need, and with our fractional services we can also manage every aspect providing turnkey sustainability solutions that best meet a company’s needs and repair the world.

Nancy Hudes and Stuart Kaplow, two Maryland attorneys who are among the principals at ESG Legal Solutions have two things in common. The first is excellence and the second is that they are innovative and creative lawyers. They have combined forces, joining together to publish this blog leveraging their legal knowledge and practical experience for business interests in the ESG space.

Nancy Hudes is an attorney and a principal at ESG Legal Solutions where she assists clients in analyzing and complying with government laws and regulations that primarily relate to ESG matters.  She carries out the studies and factual investigations necessary to assemble the data and information for making ESG claims. Likewise, she represents clients looking to market those claims.

Nancy’s work is aimed at increasing the value of a client’s business through the ESG space.

After completion of her bachelor’s degree at Emory University she went on to graduate from Temple Law School. She was admitted to the Maryland bar in 2000.

Nancy is active in charitable and philanthropic efforts.

Stuart Kaplow is an attorney and a principal at ESG Legal Solutions where he brings a broad background of legal and business interests with focused experience in sustainability and environmental law buttressed with his experience as an environmental entrepreneur.

A client of more than 3 decades characterizes Kaplow as hardcore and he does not object to that descriptor.

He has successfully briefed and argued a number of precedent setting cases before appellate courts.  He has been practicing law in Maryland since 1985 and is a graduate of the University of Baltimore School of Law.

Stuart is active in the philanthropic and charitable community and among his local commitments he serves on the board of Building STEPS, a not for profit that exposes bright, underserved high school students to science and technology based careers. He is also the co-founder of Prologue, one of the largest nonprofits in the Baltimore area providing residential and psychosocial treatment to chronically mentally ill individuals.

If there is any question about his fortitude and strength of will, Kaplow has trekked and climbed some of the wildest real estate across all 7 continents from Kilimanjaro to Everest and K2, with many summits and mountaineering adventures in between.